Perfect: 68 Essential Recipes for Every Cook's Repertoire Kindle Edition

Forget pretty pictures, this a great read, as Felicity Cloake compares different chefs approaches to the dish she is describing and then gives you her take on the best combination of all their skills to create a finale recipe.

Felicity Cloake has laughable knife-skills, an endearing little speech impediment that likely makes her unintelligible to most Americans, and is short on knowledge on several important cooking techniques. But she has a real way with finding the perfect recipe. Not familiar with her "Perfect" format? She makes several recipes taken from various top-of-their-game chefs, describes the strengths and weaknesses of each one in detail, and then melds them all into her idea of perfection.Her ideas are damn good, but if you disagree with any decision she makes, you can simply reverse it by substituting some road she didn't travel. The other recipes are described in enough detail that each recipe can easily fan out into a dozen distinctly different ones.But if you still pay attention to American health warnings about food ("Margarine is good for you! Butter is bad!") then you should know that's she's ... authentic. Her Perfect Cornish Pasties call for lard in the pastry. You might think to bravely substitute butter, but the pastry recipe ALSO calls for butter, so just suck it in and buy some (preferably fresh) lard, OK? Your mouth and your guests will thank you, giving you time to make your own separate peace with your bathroom scale.

Very interesting book. I do like Felicity Cloake and her recipes. She is very interesting on the British Library food series as well.

These made fantastic presents for my father in law last Christmas who is still going on about them and cooking from them months later. He's so impressed, I'm hoping my husband will buy me my own copies this coming Christmas!!

I love No 2 and use it so often - it's great as she tries out all the other chef recipes and then tells you the best way to do things. Great idea. I really like it.

Useful book to have.

perfect cloake will never let you down